


Achilles' Master

by littlelamblittlelamb



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 13:23:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3651945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelamblittlelamb/pseuds/littlelamblittlelamb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patroclus is summoned by Odysseus to meet. It is only there, speaking with this sculptor of words, that Patroclus realises he has Achilles on an invisible leash - he is his tether to humanity to keep him from bounding away with hubris.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Achilles' Master

If anything can be said of Odysseus, it is that he does not offend. He is big enough and strong enough and warrior enough and handsome enough – and never too much. He hits a mark that seems near invisible, something few seem to aspire to. His great success is veiling that which is striking – a cutting, keen political mind – beneath layers of suffocating diplomacy. I hate him, but I would not say so to anyone but Achilles. They might ask why, and I think the air I should use to speak would slither from my lungs.

As it is, I stand in his tent as he pours wine. He smiles as he does so – I think if I smiled so often people would think I took after my mother – but it sits on his lips without force. With practice. He makes to hand me the goblet, and I hesitate. I do not know why. I think I do not belong here, with these men who pour over life and death, while those who cannot decide are cut down. I think I will die here.

“Now Patroclus; I’ve not poisoned it. Achilles would have my head before the wine had spilled.” Everything he says is surrounded by the whispers of what he does not. When he mentions Achilles, I feel my lips twitch. I remember the day on the ship. I remember Achilles’s frown.

“That wasn’t it,” I mutter. The other men would say something else, something biting with a snarl. Perhaps something about his wife – yes, I think, Achilles would have your whole family, but you last of all – but it is petulant. I am not a man to say such things. Shows of false pride suit me poorly.

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t.” His face softens. Every so often, I think that I could hate him less. I am not a general – I am the least in need of convincing in the camp. I heal and work and make no decisions. How easily Odysseus could be honest with me. But he is not. “You are careful, is all, for the sake for being careful. A good skill for a healer. I’ve heard a good number of men praising your thoroughness and deft hands, and a similar number bemoaning when it was not you who saw to them. It makes me glad that I brought you here.”

In spite of myself I feel the compliment bubble beneath my skin. But there is more, and I feel it loaded in his words. “You didn’t ask me to your tent for wine and compliments.”

He nods, and smiles as though I am very clever and this is all very silly. Like I am a child. “I did not know about your skills with medicine before you came here; I knew of your proximity to Achilles, and more than that, the esteem he held you in. There is more to your relationship – I am not here to embarrass you, Patroclus – there is more than I suspected. I am glad for it.”

“Glad for it?” I sputter. It is one thing to avoid mentioning it for our sakes, but to be glad of it?

Odysseus nods easily. “Yes. I suspect Agamemnon would be glad of it too, if he could see through his own pride.” Odysseus tilts his head as he carefully mocks their general. “Achilles is terribly weak, however.”

I nearly choke, and set my wine down, spilling a drop that slides down the rim. “A good number of men would disagree with you, Prince of Ithaca.”

Odysseus grimaces. “In honesty, Patroclus, these men know that the hero Achilles is a dog who has been set upon Troy and not themselves, and for that they consider themselves very lucky indeed. To them, Achilles must seem quite fearsome. But to me, I see that he is well controlled. Trust me, Patroclus; one as dangerous as Achilles does need to be controlled.”

“Prince Achilles is here of his own will with his own men. He needs no controlling.” I sound almost calm, but I hear what Odysseus hears; the weakness, the love, the pungent tang of desperation.

“Patroclus, you know better than that. Achilles was born under the prophecy of surpassing his father – a father who was an impressive man indeed. Do you understand what that must entail? Knowing you would be great without needing a drop of malice or competition? It is not a feat for men like us.” His eyes bore into mine, imploring me to understand – or rather, to agree. “But he was a pup, then. He is not anymore. His pride grows every day. He believes he is still the same young Prince of Phthia who sailed with us to Troy, but he is not. With you, he is able to pretend. And again, I am pleased he does. But he is changed. He sees no contradiction when he slaughters the families of peasant men only to save the pretty women. That is because his humanity starts and finishes with you.”

He has made a point that I wish I could refute, but I have allowed myself to be a part of this contradiction – willed it so. Better some lives are spared than none at all. Achilles would not save the girls if I did not ask him to, and that is an odd thought. They would be beyond his notice.

He is not a man, I think. He is a god with his favourites, and the rest – unnamed masses.

“His pride swells, Patroclus. I do not ask you to agree with me, and it is not in my interest for you to betray Prince Achilles, but your importance in this war is not purely in your medical knowledge. Achilles’s glory is worth all of our lives but yours, it should seem.”

“It is all he has,” I murmur.

“His pride, but also you. Hate me for saying this – I do not mind – but I will have failed if I don’t have you understand. Achilles will lose himself. There may come a time when he grows to place all the generals so in disdain that he might do something. That is to say, Patroclus, that there may come a time when you are the only person in the world who will save our war. I’m asking you to stand by him, but not his hubris.”

“He is good,” I say. A juggling boy with a glint of mischief in his eyes. A child of sandy shores and games of racing and eating sweet figs. A man who kills.

“He is good because for now, he fights for us. But what if his pride surpasses his compassion? Tensions are growing,” says Odysseus.

Once I was a prince. It is odd to remember that.

“Achilles is noble. He would not turn on his people,” I say.

“Achilles or Greece? Patroclus, I need to know. Wherever you fall – and though I care, I can’t force you to pick Greece. No one can force you to do a thing with such a good friend as Achilles, but I need to be prepared.”

I imagine what is in the head of Odysseus. Too much, I think. He sees everything in the war and strategizes battle and people and supplies. His mind whirs and thrums and not for a moment is it halted the way mine so often is, jamming under the impossible weight of decisions and feelings and uncertainty.

“Achilles,” I say. Odysseus does not look surprised.

“If I made a comparison about choosing my wife, would you scowl at me?” asks Odysseus lightly. In his curious mind, changes are already being made.

“I choose Achilles,” I repeat, “and his pride and his memory. A good memory. A memory of a man who earned glory and fought brilliantly for Greece – without hubris or malice. I would not choose to let him fall. It should never be a choice between Greece and Achilles. I would never choose that.”

Odysseus nods as though he had been expecting it all along. Odysseus, always anticipating. I make to leave, feeling the intensity slip away, my presence seeming increasingly strange in his tent. “Thank you,” he calls. “I’m glad.”

We do not talk much after that day. I never fear he will mention our conversation to Achilles; Odysseus is a good liar, a great politician. Nothing is given away for free, and certainly not for a loss. I think I will go back to being Achilles’s shadow and bedwarmer in his eyes.

Little changes after that but for one instance; a small kindness.

A man of some importance – and who had drunk a significant quantity of ale – voiced a number of opinions. Nothing to be listened to, but slights against his comrades nonetheless. He did not insult Achilles directly – could anyone? – but my name was dragged sufficiently through the mud. Speaking to men of my being nothing more than one of the pillaged women is the closest anyone can come to touching him. Nobody ever repeats these incidences to Achilles, however.

Odysseus quickly intervened to hush the man, lest he had enemies who could relay this information back to Achilles. I stood just feet away, in clear view. They know I never speak of these things to Achilles. I remember the boy’s head against the rock; I would not kill for pride.

“You must see, Odysseus,” he slurred, “how odd it is for the great Achilles to keep an exiled prince for his bed. He is our finest, yet he would keep that man at his side – night and day! He ought to hide himself – ought to have the decency not to attend meetings and then his bed chamber. How can you and the others stand him, Odysseus?”

I did not expect a rebuke from Odysseus. I did not expect anything aside from his usual easy going smile. It came, but so too did he speak.

“I don’t know, friend. He is surprising.”


End file.
